Page 49 of The Entanglement of Rival Wizards (Magic and Romance #1)

There’s not a scrap of alcohol left in my body, suffocated by a barrage of sensation that tightens around me as immovably as my mom’s arms. Dread rises to the forefront, corrals everything else, and asserts dominance over the way I stare at my father and can only think, Oh gods, no.

I go rigid. Arms out at my sides. Heart flatlining, impossibilities trying to take shape in my head, but I don’t let them. Can’t trust them.

Dad scrubs his hands on his knees, his eyes bloodshot, like maybe he hasn’t been sleeping.

My gaze tracks to Orok, who analyzes my dad, my mom still hugging me, before looking at me with broken-apart exhaustion.

“Sebastian,” Dad says, and coughs into his fist. “I hope you don’t mind us coming. We—”

He notices Thio, who steps up beside me.

Dad goes silent, looking at me in question.

His demeanor is throwing me off. He’s cautious and careful and I almost do an identification spell to be sure someone with actual emotion hasn’t taken over his body.

“This is Thio,” I introduce, dazed. “My boyfriend.”

Thio’s head whips toward me.

That’s the first time either of us has used that word.

And it had to be now, of course. When I can’t feel the importance of it.

Mom peels back from me and digs in her pocket to free a packet of tissues. As she dabs at her eyes, she turns to Thio with a polite smile and extends her hand. “Hi, Thio. I’m Abigail, Sebastian’s mother.”

He shakes her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs.—”

She sucks in a breath. Of recognition.

And drops his hand to gape at me, her brows coming together in utter—horror?

“This is Elethior Tourael, ” she states.

Unease itches the back of my neck. “Yeah?”

“ Tourael, ” she says again, and gods, the utter irony. Months ago, she’d stood in almost this exact spot and said that name reverently, thrilled I’d be working with a Tourael.

Now she’s looking at me in disgust, glaring at Thio with all the rage I once showed him.

It adds another layer of confirmation about why they’re here.

I step in front of him, hands in fists. “What do you want?” I demand it of her, and my dad, who hasn’t moved from the couch.

“Abby,” Dad says.

She sniffs and bites her lips together, but retreats to the couch.

Dad stands once she sits. Like they’re taking turns.

“We have some things we’d like to discuss.” Dad eyes Thio. “In private?”

“He’s not going anywhere,” I say. “Whatever you think you’re going to get from this, I promise, it won’t—”

“Sebastian,” my dad says. “Give us five minutes. That’s all we ask.”

He’s towering over the room like he always does, a massive force of presence. But it doesn’t feel threatening this time.

I don’t know what impact this will have but I know I don’t have the resiliency to endure it.

Or.

Maybe I do.

Thio touches my arm and I immediately link my fingers with his.

Dad’s eyes glisten. It’s a fist wrapping around my heart, squeezing where it’s gone stationary, restarting it.

“We know,” he whispers. “About Camp Merethyl. About the ouroboros project.”

Mom muffles a sob into her palms.

I don’t look at her.

I’m looking at my father, and for the first time in… my whole life, probably, he sees me.

It’s appalling. Insufferable.

I’d wanted this. Didn’t I tell Thio that?

That I wanted my dad to get the job. He’d have access to the records, and he’d find out.

He’d know. He’d know all my secrets, all the secrets I never wanted to keep from him.

Things I tried not to keep from him, and he told me I was lying.

He told me I’d misunderstood. That isn’t what happened, Sebastian, don’t be dramatic.

I thought I wanted this. I thought I could handle this.

I turn to Thio, eyes blurring.

“Take me to your place,” I beg him. “Now. Please. Let’s go, now.”

I’m crying. When did I start crying? Fucking hell, I don’t want this—

Thio cradles my cheek. “Okay, baby. Let’s—”

Dad steps around the coffee table. Orok hasn’t moved, his eyes on the floor, and he’s slumped in his chair.

“Wait,” Dad says. His voice cracks, and I’m undone. “Sebastian. Just—wait.”

My eyes pinch shut, but I don’t move, and Thio doesn’t make me. He loops one arm around me and I rock into him.

“We’re so sorry, son,” Dad tells me. “ I am sorry. We—the things I learned, I—”

He stops. I’m not looking at him, my eyes still closed so I don’t see what his face does, but I can hear, and he sounds shattered. There’s rustling, the squeak of couch cushions; I think he’s sitting again, and that makes it easier, somehow.

“You should know.” His voice is stronger, but there’s still a choked-off quality to it. “I turned over everything I found to the Mageus Military Police. I doubt, however, that much will come of it, given how many people within the ranks have benefited from Camp Merethyl.”

“They won’t believe you.” I pop my eyes open and glare at him. “Will they?”

It’s targeted, and it hits, my dad flinching against the cushions. Mom has her hand in his, gripping tight.

“There will still be an investigation,” he tries. “There will still be—”

“ Nothing . There will be nothing, because no one will hold them accountable. You’re asking people in positions of immense power to admit they fucked up, and that will never happen .”

I’m shouting, words echoing off the apartment walls. I stepped away from Thio at some point, too hot now to be near anyone. It’s burning me up, the fires that have always eaten away at me; this is their final inferno, the finishing blaze.

Dad sits up straight again. “It’s a step forward.”

I laugh. Bitter, cackling. “That’s why you’ve come?

To get credit for doing the bare minimum six years too late ?

Where the hell were you when I came home from camp every summer malnourished and ill, and you told me I needed to beef up before next year?

Where the hell were you when I had to rip blood out of Orok’s body?

I could feel his heart slowing down; do you have any idea what that’s like?

I could feel him dying . I came home after that and you told me I was a failure. Where were you then? ”

A sob gags me and I bend over, hands on my knees, gasping to the floor, crying so hard my body aches.

Orok’s head is in his hands, fingers arched against his hair.

No one else moves, no one reacts, all of us trapped in the inescapable cage of the pain emanating out of me.

I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know how to cap it.

I loved my parents. I loved my dad, this larger-than-life man I trusted and admired. I loved them both, and I still do, and I hate that I can’t hate them. That this hurts so bad.

Dad stands slowly. Still crouched over, I scowl up at him.

He’s crying, too.

I’ve never seen my father cry. Not at funerals. Not for anything good, even. But he’s crying now, tears dripping down his cheeks as he watches me.

“I know,” he croaks out. “I know I made mistakes. I can’t—” He takes a beat, eyes flipping to the ceiling, back to me.

“I can’t fix what I did to you. To you both.

” He includes Orok, who’s still folded in on himself.

“But I can start from here, and do the right thing. I didn’t just involve the Mageus Military Police. I spoke with my lawyer.”

That yanks me upright. “You did what ?”

“In hypotheticals,” Mom adds, her face blotchy. “We haven’t opened anything official yet.”

Dad nods at what Mom said. “We got information at this stage. But he said we have plenty to go after—” He side-eyes Thio, sucks his teeth.

“To go after the Touraels who own Camp Merethyl. He reviewed the camp’s bylaws, and even with the…

restrictive terminology in the forms they had us sign, he said we are well within our rights to sue them for gross abuse of magic, at the very least.”

Exhaustion’s appearance is swift and violent. Maybe I am still tipsy, the alcohol bypassing drunkenness and shoving me right into pure, unfiltered fatigue.

Dad’s offering me justice.

It was all I’d wanted, any of those summers. For him to step in.

For him to save me.

I can’t speak. Can’t move. Can’t figure out how I’m supposed to react to what he’s offering.

“Give him time?” Thio asks behind me. “To think it over.”

Dad glances at Thio again. He doesn’t look as murderous as Mom did, but he’s still hesitant, like he’s about to question why I’m dating a Tourael when Dad now knows what those Touraels did to me. When Dad himself offered to sue Thio’s family.

“Of course,” Dad says. “Take your time. We—” His inhale is shaky. “We want to fix this going forward, Sebastian. Whatever it takes. Whatever you want.”

“Are you keeping the job?” I don’t know why that’s the question that digs its way out of me.

Dad’s smile is fragile. “No, son. I turned over the information to the Mageus Military Police and stepped down.”

Tension releases. A small knot of it, somewhere deep in my stomach.

There are still dozens of other knots. Other sources of distrust and pain that are years old.

But I sink into myself, shoulders bowing.

Mom rises. “We’re staying at a hotel in town for another night, if you want to talk. But after, we’ll be back home, and still—anytime you want to talk, please, we’ll be ready.”

I shrug. It’s all I have to give at this point.

Mom kisses my cheek. Dad pats my shoulder; I think he might want to hug me, but he doesn’t.

Our dynamic has been etched in stone for almost a decade. I’m the disappointment; he’s the enemy. I remember how it was before, how it was to smile at him and love him and trust him, but the memory is faded and blurred, like a dream turning to wisps the more I try to hold on to it.

The door shuts behind them.

Thio moves. I’m being pushed to sit on the couch and a bottle of water is put on the table next to me; I see Orok has one now, too. Thio’s saying something quietly to him, and Orok nods.

Then Thio’s next to me on the couch, his arm around me. “Sebastian?”